Lets say I am 120 mage and I arm myself with a -20 mage weapon mace, this means that I am a gm mace and a gm mage? But this also means that I can't use any of the weapon specials because I have no tactics? If I did added tactics to my template, then could I use the weapon specials? I am just trying to understand this whole mage weapon thing.

I believe the answer is yes to all your questions, but if you plan on casting spells with the weapon equipped it will need Spell Chanelling as well or you will drop the weapon when casting and have to re-equip after. the tactics requirement is the same, so will need 70 to do primary and 90 to secondary moves.

Yes, you will be GM magery. Your macing skill loses no value, so it is whatever your real and/or jewelled up skill level is. In other words, if you were 120 macing and magery, your magery would drop to 100 but not your macing.

Mage Weapon only overrides if your after reduced mage skill would be higher than your macing skill.

So you still have to have macing? Someone told me the other day that if a 120 mage can arm themself with a -20 mage weapon, the he become a gm macer without having macing skill. The only reason I am asking is because the other night at the Yew gate I was playing anound with someone from VIP! and he was casting magery, he was hitting people with a mace, and I believe I saw him switch to a cross bow. So does this char have archery, macing, and magery skills, or does the -mage weapon makes him gm macer and a gm archery?

You got it right the first time, don't let them confuse you

You don't need macing. If you are 120 mage and equip a -20 mage weapon, you can cast like a gm mage and hit like gm macer without needing the macing skill. As seid before, it is preferable that the weapon also is spellchanneling so it doesn't uneuip upon casting.
The guy form VIP! propably got a nice mageweapon/sc mace and the same as x-bow.
As you asumed, as setup like this is most efficient with tactics thrown in for the special attacks.

Hope I could clarify a bit...

Yes thank you

Now I got my own question concerning mage weapons

What happend if a legendary swordsman with 0.0 magery equips a mage weapon sword? Will he attack with a skill of 0.0 or with a skill of 120.0?

He will attack with 0 skill since the effectiveness of using a mage weapon is based on the magery skill alone. HOWEVER, if you have tactics, it helps with the damage you do, just as with a weapon skill. We tested it a long time ago for my knights who also used magery for battle. They used the ice staffs to begin their battles, since one also had tactics, the other did not, the one without tactics did a lot more running that night! Oh what fond memories.

You cant perform weapon specials on a mage weapon when u dont have the weapon skill. Tactics wont help.